Editorial: California cities’ reefer reluctance

A marijuana plant growing at a cultivation business in San Bernardino County.

Photo: Irfan Khan, TNS

Demonized for decades, marijuana remains controversial even on the brink of its statewide legalization — and even in pot-friendly strongholds such as San Francisco. The city is one of many still debating local regulations that will either embrace an overdue retreat from the drug war or effectively prolong the failed policy at the neighborhood level.

For vacillating municipal officials, some context is in order. This week alone, New Jersey and Virginia voters resoundingly elected gubernatorial candidates promising to liberalize marijuana policy; Constellation Brands, a Fortune 500 seller of many popular wine and beer brands, was reported to have bought a nearly $200 million stake in a Canadian cannabis company; and California’s attorney general approved signature-gathering for a ballot measure to legalize psilocybin mushrooms.

Of course, many marijuana advocates would hesitate to unleash psilocybin, a powerful hallucinogen, but the general momentum for drug decriminalization is obvious and justified. Preventing American adults from legally procuring marijuana, let alone jailing them for it, is well on its way to being regarded as a folly on the order of prohibiting them from buying a beer. A recent Gallup poll found that 64 percent of Americans favor legal cannabis, including a majority of Republicans.

More on Recreational Marijuana

And yet in San Francisco, home of medical marijuana pioneers, the Board of Supervisors is considering measures that would ban dispensaries from particular neighborhoods or, by virtue of strictly limiting their proximity to schools and other facilities, most of the city. Such not-in-my-backyard proposals are only masquerading as safety measures: As with alcohol, minors can be discouraged from consuming the drug by law enforcement, not an extra block’s walk.

San Francisco is also joining Oakland and Los Angeles in devising a program to prioritize licenses for those harmed by the drug war, as indicated by past criminal convictions and other prerequisites. Though noble in their intent, the programs seem more likely to impede the transition to a regulated market than to redress injustice. The best answer to the drug war is to proceed with the cease-fire voters have declared.

As evidenced by State Treasurer John Chiang’s efforts to grapple with cannabis financing challenges — he has proposed a fleet of armored vehicles to collect revenue from what remains a cash business — legal marijuana presents plenty of genuine policy challenges. The state’s cities need not invent any.

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.